iPlanet Server Monitor

The SiteScope iPlanet Server Monitor allows you to monitor the availability of SunONE/iPlanet and Netscape servers. The error and warning thresholds for the monitor can be set on as many as ten Netscape server performance statistics or HTTP response codes.

Note: The SiteScope iPlanet Server Monitor is formerly known as the Netscape Server Monitor. Several file, name, and performance counter changes have been made to reflect the changes in the server product name and capabilities of the monitor.

Usage Guidelines

Use the iPlanet Server Monitor to monitor the content of server administration pages for iPlanet and Netscape servers. You can monitor multiple parameters or counters with a single monitor instance. This allows you to watch server loading for performance, availability, and capacity planning. Create a separate monitor instance for each server you are running.

The following are requirements for using the iPlanet Server Monitor:

To monitor Current Activity statistics for iPlanet 4.1 servers:

You will need to know the username and password to access the iPlanet administrative server page. The URL for the main administrative page normally has the form of:
http://serveraddress:adminport/https-admserv/bin/index
Identify the virtual server instance name you want to monitor. This should be available in the drop-down box to the right of the Manage button. Enter it in the place of virtualserveraddressname in the URL (see below).
Set up monitor using iPlanet 4.1 current activity counters using the URL of the following form:
http://serveraddress:adminport/https-virtualserveraddressname/bin/sitemon?doit:

To monitor performance dump statistics for iPlanet 4.1 servers:

Modify the obj.conf file for each virtual server instance you want to monitor adding the line to enable perf dump. The conf entry normally has the form of:
<Object ppath="path/Netscape/Server4/docs/.perf"> Service fn=service-dump </Object>
Restart the server(s)
Access the performance dump page using the URL of the form: http://serveraddress:http_port/.perf
Set up the iPlanet Server Monitor using iPlanet 4.1 performance dump counters (see below)

To monitor server statistics for iPlanet 6.0 servers using HTTP:

You will need to know the username and password to access the iPlanet administrative server page. The URL for the main administrative page normally has the form of:
http://serveraddress:adminport/https-admserv/bin/index
Indentify the specific server instance names as shown in the drop-down box next to the Manage button. The server instance names are used as the virtualserveraddressname the URL for monitoring that server instance. The URL needed to monitor the server statistics normally has the form of;
http://serveraddress:adminport/https-virtualserveraddressname/bin/instance-app/ pageStats.jsp?pollInterval=15&vsname=All
where pageStats is replaced with a specific statistics page name as outlined below.
Note: For the value for vsname (virtual server name) you can replace All with a specific virtualserveraddressname to monitor specific server instances. For example:
http://serveraddress:adminport/https-virtualserveraddressname/bin/instance-app/ pageStats.jsp?pollInterval=15&vsname=virtualserveraddressname
- To monitor virtual server activity statistics substitute virtualServerStats for pageStats.
- To monitor server connection status statistics substitute connectionStats for pageStats.
- To monitor server DNS statistics for iPlanet 6.0 servers substitute dnsStats for pageStats.
- To monitor Keep-Alive statistics substitute keepAliveStats for pageStats.

Completing the iPlanet Server Monitor Form

To display the iPlanet Server Monitor Form, either click the Edit link for an existing iPlanet Server Monitor in a monitor table, or click the add a Monitor link on a group's detail page and click the Add iPlanet Server Monitor link.

Complete the items on the iPlanet Server Monitor Form as follows. When the required items are complete, click the Add Monitor button.

Counters

Choose the server performance parameters or counters you want to check with this monitor. The text box to the right of this item displays those currently selected for this monitor. Use the choose counters link to bring up the counters selection screen. Check or clear the check boxes on the Choose Counters screen to select between one to ten counters to monitor on this server.

Note: Select only those counters that are applicable to the server version you want to monitor

Note: Do not edit the order of the counters in the selected counter text box. The counters must be maintained in the order they appear in the choose counter selection page.

The SunONE/iPlanet 4.1 performance parameters or counters available for the iPlanet Server Monitor include:

For current server activity:

Bytes transferred
Total requests
Bad requests
200 - number of successful transactions processed by the server since the last server restart.
2xx - The number of the server handles status codes in the 200 to 299 range since the last server restart.
302 - The number of requests with a status of "found".
304 - The number of requests with a status of "not modified" in response to conditional GET requests.
3xx - The number of server handles status codes in the 300 to 399 range since the last server restart.
401 - The number of unauthorized requests handled by the server since the last server restart.
403 - The number of forbidden requests handled by the server since the last server restart.
4xx - The number of server handles status codes in the 400 to 499 range since the last server restart. This includes code 404 which is a status of "not found"
5xx - The number of server handles status codes in the 500 to 599 range since the last server restart. This includes code 500 which indicates a server internal error.
xxx - all three digit HTTP response codes

For server performance dump:

Address
ActiveThreads
WaitingThreads
BusyThreads
Thread limits
Total Sessions
KeepAliveCount
KeepAliveHits
KeepAliveFlushes
KeepAliveTimeout
enabled - Indicated the state of the Cache feature
CacheEntries
Hit Ratio
pollInterval
NativePool:
Idle/Peak/Limit - Returns numbers expressed in the format of nn/nn/nn
Work queue length/Peak/Limit - Returns numbers expressed in the format of nn/nn/nn

The iPlanet 6.0 server performance parameters or counters available for the iPlanet Server Monitor include:

For Virtual Server statistics (virtualServerStats.jsp):

Total Number Of Requests
Number Of Bytes Received
Number Of Bytes Sent
Number Of Virtual Servers
200 - number of successful transactions processed by the server since the last server restart.
2xx - The number of the server handles status codes in the 200 to 299 range since the last server restart.
302 - The number of requests with a status of "found".
304 - The number of requests with a status of "not modified" in response to conditional GET requests.
3xx - The number of server handles status codes in the 300 to 399 range since the last server restart.
401 - The number of unauthorized requests handled by the server since the last server restart.
403 - The number of forbidden requests handled by the server since the last server restart.
404 - The number of page not found requests handled by the server since the last server restart.
4xx - The number of server handles status codes in the 400 to 499 range since the last server restart. This includes code 404 which is a status of "not found"
5xx - The number of server handles status codes in the 500 to 599 range since the last server restart. This includes code 500 which indicates a server internal error.
Other - all three digit HTTP response codes

For Keep-Alive statistics (keepAliveStats.jsp):

Maximum Keep-Alive Connections
Keep-Alive Timeout
Number Of Processes
Keep-Alive Hits
Keep-Alive Flushes
Keep-Alive Refusals
Keep-Alive Timeouts

For server DNS statistics (dnsStats.jsp):

Maximum DNS Cache Entries
Number Of Processes
DNS Cache Hits
DNS Cache Misses

For Cache statistics (cacheStats.jsp):

Maximum Cache Age \(seconds\)
Maximum Heap Cache Size
Maximum Memory Cache Map Size
Number Of Processes
Cache Hits
Cache Misses
Info Cache Hits
Info Cache Misses
Content Cache Hits
Content Cache Misses

For Connection statistics (connectionStats.jsp):

Total Number Of Connections
Maximum Number Of Queued Connections
Peak Number Of Queued Connections
Current Number Of Queued Connections
Number Of Processes

URL

Select the URL you want to verify with this monitor. This URL should be the URL to the applicable server monitor statistics Web page for the server version you want to monitor. For iPlanet 4.1 servers this usually has the form of http://servername:adminport/https-serveraddress/bin/sitemon?doit. For iPlanet 6.0 servers, the URL of the monitor statistics Web page has the form http://servername:adminport/https-instanceserveraddress/bin/instance-app/ pageStats.jsp?pollInterval=15&vsname=All where pageStats.jsp is replaced with the file reference for the specific statistics page you want to monitor (see the list of counters above).

Note: The servername:port and serveraddress are not necessarily identical depending on if you access the administrator server pages locally or remotely. The SiteScope iPlanet Server Monitor generally needs to be configured using the full serveraddress and not the https-admserv syntax. Normally you can find the serveraddress in the Select a Server box on the main administration Web page.

Note: (Recommended for Advanced Users Only) The iPlanet Server Monitor can be used to monitor other server products in the SunONE product line that make their performance statistics available via an server monitor statistics Web page. In order to monitor other products you will need to know the URL of the access log or administration Web page for that product version. You will need to modify the regular expression in the _netscapeRegExp= entry of the SiteScope master.config file and add any additional counter strings to the SiteScope/templates.applications/counters.iplanet file to extract the applicable values from the administration logs.

Update every

Select how often the monitor should access the URL entered above. The default interval is to run or update the monitor once every 10 minutes. Use the drop-down list to the right of the text box to specify another update interval in increments of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. The update interval must be 15 seconds or longer.

Note: Depending on the activity on the server, the time to build the server monitor statistics Web page may take more than 15 seconds. You should test the monitor with an Update value of several minutes to ensure that the server can build and serve the server monitor statistics Web page before the SiteScope monitor is scheduled to run again.

Title

Enter a title text for this monitor. This text is displayed in the group detail page, in report titles, and other places in the SiteScope interface. If you do not enter a title text, SiteScope will create a title based on the host, server, or URL being monitored.

Advanced Options

The Advanced Options section presents a number of ways to customize monitor behavior and display. Use this section to customize error and warning thresholds, disable the monitor, set monitor-to-monitor dependencies, customize display options, and enter other monitor specific settings required for special infrastructure environments. The options for this monitor type are described below. Complete the entries as needed and click the Add or Update button to save the settings.

Disable

Check this box to temporarily disable this monitor and any associated alerts. To enable the monitor again, clear the box.

Timeout

The number of seconds that the monitor should wait for a response from the server before timing-out. Once this time period passes, the monitor will log an error and report an error status.

Note: Depending on the activity on the server, the time to build the server monitor statistics Web page may take more than 15 seconds. You should test the monitor with an Timeout value of more than 60 seconds to ensure that the server can build and serve the server monitor statistics Web page before the SiteScope monitor is scheduled to run again.

HTTP Proxy

Optionally, a proxy server can be used to access the server. Enter the domain name and port of an HTTP Proxy Server.

Authorization User Name

If the server you want to monitor requires a name and password for access, enter the name in this box.

Authorization Password

If the server you want to monitor requires a name and password for access, enter the password in this box.

NT Challenge Response

Check this box if you want SiteScope to use Window's NT Challenge Response authorization when accessing the server.

Proxy Server User Name

If the proxy server requires a name and password to access the server, enter the name here. Technical note: your proxy server must support Proxy-Authenticate for these options to function.

Proxy Server Password

If the proxy server requires a name and password to access the server, enter the password here. Technical note: your proxy server must support Proxy-Authenticate for these options to function.

Verify Error

Check this box if you want SiteScope to automatically run this monitor again if it detects an error. When an error is detected, the monitor will immediately be scheduled to run again once.

Note: In order to change the run frequency of this monitor when an error is detected, use the Update every (on errors) option below.

Note: The status returned by the Verify Error run of the monitor will replace the status of the originally scheduled run that detected an error. This may cause the loss of important performance data if the data from the verify run is different than the initial error status.

Warning: Use of this option across many monitor instances may result in significant monitoring delays in the case that multiple monitors are rescheduled to verify errors at the same time.

Update Every (on error)

You use this option to set a new monitoring interval for monitors that have registered an error condition. For example, you may want SiteScope to monitor this item every 10 minutes normally, but as often as every 2 minutes if an error has been detected. Note that this increased scheduling will also affect the number of alerts generated by this monitor.

Schedule

By default, SiteScope monitors are enabled every day of the week. You may, however, schedule your monitors to run only on certain days or on a fixed schedule. Click the Edit schedule link to create or edit a monitor schedule. For more information about working with monitor schedules, see the section on Schedule Preferences for Monitoring.

Monitor Description

Enter additional information about this monitor. The Monitor Description can include HTML tags such as the <BR> <HR>, and <B> tags to control display format and style. The description will appear on the Monitor Detail page.

Report Description

Enter an optional description for this monitor that will make it easier to understand what the monitor does. For example, network traffic or main server response time. This description will be displayed on with each bar chart and graph in Management Reports and appended to the tool-tip displayed when you pass the mouse cursor over the status icon for this monitor on the monitor detail page.

Depends On

To make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor or monitor group, use the drop-down list to select the monitor on which this monitor is dependent. Select None to remove any dependency.

Depends Condition

If you choose to make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor, select the status condition that the other monitor or monitor group should have in order for the current monitor to run normally. The current monitor will be run normally as long as the monitor on which it depends reports the condition selected in this option.

List Order

By default, new monitors are listed last on the Monitor Detail page. You can use this drop-down list to choose a different placement for this monitor.

Setting Monitor Status Thresholds

SiteScope Application Monitors allow you to set multiple threshold conditions to determine the status reported by each monitor. The individual conditions are combined as logical OR relationships so that when one or more of the conditions (for example any of the conditions for Error if) are met the monitor status is set to the applicable condition. If multiple conditions are met for more than one status condition (such as conditions for both error and for warning), the status for the monitor is set to the highest valued condition. Thus a match of an error condition and a warning condition would be reported as an error status, error being the highest value, warning the next highest and good the lowest value.

Error if: Use one or more of the selection boxes in this item to define one or more error conditions for this monitor. Use the drop-down lists in these items to change error threshold(s) relative to the counters you have selected to check with this monitor. After choosing a counter or parameter, use the comparison operator drop-down list to specify an error threshold such as: >= (greater than or equal to), != (not equal to), or < (less than) and enter a comparison value in the box provided. Comparison values should be entered as whole numbers.
Warning if: Use one or more of the selection boxes in this item to define one or more warning conditions for this monitor. Use the drop-down lists in these items to change warning threshold(s) relative to the counters you have selected to check with this monitor. Set these value relative to those you set for the error threshold in the Error if item.
Good if: You can set this monitor to return a good status for certain conditions. You may define those conditions here. Complete this item as you would for the Error if and Warning if items.